Last night, Together for Palestine – a huge fundraising gig held at London’s OVO Wembley arena – raised around £1.5 million for Palestinian-led organisations supporting people in Gaza. Organised by Brian Eno and art directed by Palestinian painter Malak Mattar, the event featured a star-studded line-up of Hollywood A-listers, musicians, journalists, presenters and activists. 

“For the people in Palestine, I’m sorry it’s taken this long for so many people to show up for you. I hope that this will spark the change that we need,” singer-songwriter Cat Burns told Dazed. She performed a duet with Rachel Chinouriri, as part of a diverse lineup which included PinkPantheress, Paul Weller, Hot Chip, Damon Albarn, Neneh Cherry, Jamie xx, James Blake, Sampha and King Krule.

Explaining why it was important for her to get involved with Together for Palestine, actor Caritha Candran, who spoke onstage with PinkPantheress, told Dazed, “I think there were three main reasons. One is we want to raise money and we want to provide aid. Another one is to raise awareness. The third is to show solidarity with Palestinians everywhere, and that we hear you and we see you and we want to do all that we can to help.”

Activist and model Munroe Bergdorf added that the situation in Gaza was “heartbreaking”, and said “we all should be speaking up and using our voices, using our voices and using our privileges to hopefully make a change.” Addressing Palestinians everywhere, she added, “You’re not alone. There are millions of us around the world who believe that what is happening is the biggest travesty of our generation, of our lifetime.”

Other actors who spoke at the event included Benedict Cumberbatch, Florence Pugh, Ramy Yousef, Riz Ahmed and Richard Gere. During her speech, Florence Pugh said, “Silence in the face of such suffering is not neutrality. It is complicity. And empathy should not be this hard, and it should’ve never been this hard.”

Alongside Malak Mattar’s art direction, Palestinian figures featured heavily on the bill. Musicians Adnan Joubran, an oud player; rapper El Far3i, singer Nai Barghouti and composer Faraj Suleiman provided an eclectic showcase of Palestinian music, with influences ranging from the traditional to the contemporary. Ahyam Hassan, a Palestinian fashion designer and CSM graduate, designed pieces for the event’s official merchandise line, alongside Bella Freud, Katherine Hamnett and Priya Ahulwalia, which are still available to buy on Together for Palestine’s website. Yara Eid, a journalist and human rights advocate from Gaza, delivered a powerful speech paying tribute to the 270 journalists killed by Israel since the genocide began.

Journalist Medhi Hasan returned to this subject when he spoke, denouncing the Western journalists who have said “not a word about the mass killing of their Palestinian counterparts. Shame on them.” He added, “As a Western journalist myself, I can tell you all this, the Palestinian journalists, they are the best of us. They are the best of us because they are not just documenting a war, or a genocide, they are documenting their own annihilation, their own starvation. In real time. They have shown the world that you can’t bomb the truth away.”

While elements of the fundraiser may have been joyful, everyone taking part emphasised the ongoing suffering of people in Gaza, as the death toll continues to spiral and a UN enquiry recently concluded that Israel is committing genocide (following similar pronouncements by human rights groups like Amnesty International and the world’s leading association of genocide scholars). Speaking to Dazed, activist and author Tori Tsui, who was involved in organising the event, said, “[There’s] a lot of shame. But in my opinion, the shame really belongs to Keir Starmer and the UK government, who have been complicit in this genocide.”

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